Post on 26-Feb-2021
2 Transfomation of Public Service Management
Contents
Abbreviations and acronyms ......................................................................................................... 3 Executive Summary ....................................................................................................................... 5
Organisational Change and Public Service ....................................................................................... 5 Common Purpose – A Beacon for Navigating Change ..................................................................... 6 People Management – At the Heart of Things ................................................................................. 6 Seed to Bloom – The Process ........................................................................................................... 7 Change in Praxis ............................................................................................................................... 7 Institutionalising Change – CMG to CEC........................................................................................... 8 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................ 8
1 Genesis of the New Discourse ................................................................................................ 9 2 Conventional Public Sector .................................................................................................. 10 3 Organisational Change in Public Service ............................................................................... 11
3.1 Common Purpose – A Beacon for Navigating Change ...................................................... 13 3.2 People Management – at the Heart of Things .................................................................. 14
4 Seed to Bloom – The Process................................................................................................ 21 4.1 Workplace: Sphere for Embedding Learning into Formal Systems ................................... 23 4.2 Democratic Governance .................................................................................................... 24 4.3 Leading Change ................................................................................................................. 25
5 Trials and Tribulations with Praxis ........................................................................................ 26 5.1 Citizen-centric Co-creation of Services .............................................................................. 26 5.2 Subaltern Force Multipliers ............................................................................................... 27 5.3 Accountability Interplay .................................................................................................... 27 5.4 Institutionalising Change ................................................................................................... 28
6 Flow and Ebb Interface ........................................................................................................ 30 7 Legacy Challenges ................................................................................................................ 32 8 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 32 References .................................................................................................................................. 34
Figures
Figure a Public Organisation Change (POC) Framework ................................................................................ 6
Figure b TN Water Engineers Attitude & Actions (Women & Dalit Perspective) .......................................... 7
Figure 1 Multi-state Watsan Organisational Diagnostic Survey ................................................................... 10
Figure 2 Public Organisation Change Framework ........................................................................................ 11
Figure 3 Rajasthan – Varun Group Source: CAN Workshop, Jaipur, March 2012 ....................................... 15
Figure 4 Values shift with CAN in TN Water Utility (2007) ........................................................................... 16
Figure 5 TN Water Engineers Attitude & Actions (Women & Dalit Perspective) ......................................... 18
Figure 6 Upper Vellar Sub-basin .................................................................................................................. 20
Figure 7 Endogenous Transformation Path ................................................................................................. 21
Figure 8 Functioning of VWSC (Perspective of Community) ........................................................................ 24
Figure 9 Water and Food Official – Interface with community .................................................................... 27
Figure 10 Flow and Ebb .................................................................................................................................. 30
Figure 11 Virtuous Change Flywheel .............................................................................................................. 31
Sustainable Drinking Water Services at Scale: Everyone Forever Round Table 2013 3
Tables
Table 1 POC - the Framework for Metamorphosis ..................................................................................... 12
Table 2 Operations and Maintenance (O&M) Cost Comparison (Nayar and Suresh, 2006)....................... 19
Table 3 Change in the formal space (Himachal) ......................................................................................... 23
Table 4 Voluntary User Charges for Public Fountains ................................................................................. 28
Boxes
Box 1 TN Change Management Group (CMG) ......................................................................................... 14
Box 2 Resolution of Panchayat Presidents of Morappur Block ................................................................ 14
Box 3 Resolution by Maharashtra Jal Pradhikaran (MJP) Officials ........................................................... 19
Box 4 Muttram (Aangan): Workshop Space for Exploration (2003 to 2012) ........................................... 22
Box 5 The Maraimalai Nagar Declaration, 14 August 2004 ..................................................................... 28
Abbreviations and acronyms
CAN Change Agents Network
CCMG Community CMG
CEC Centre of Excellence for Change
CEO Chief Executive Officer
CM Change Management
CMG Change Management Group
Dalit Otherwise called Scheduled Castes
DDWS Department of Drinking Water & Sanitation
GoI Government of India
GoTN Government of Tamil Nadu
HD Human Dignity
ISD Institute of Sustainable Development
IWRM Integrated Water Resources Management
MJP Maharashtra Jal Pradhikaran
Muttram Anchor workshops
O & M Operation & Maintenance
POC Public Organisation Change
PRED Panchayat Raj Engineering Department
QPA Quantified Participatory Assessment
SC Scheduled Caste
SWIC Single Window Knowledge Centres
TN Tamil Nadu state
4 Transfomation of Public Service Management
TN-IAMWARM Tamil Nadu Irrigated Agricultural Modernization & Water Resources Management
TNRWSP Tamil Nadu Rural Water Supply Program
TWAD Tamil Nadu Water Supply & Drainage Board
UNDP United Nation Development Program
VHN Village Health Nurse
VP Village Panchayat (Village Administration)
VWSC Village Water & Sanitation Committee
WASH Water, Sanitation & Hygiene
Watsan Water and Sanitation
WDR Water Development Report
WUA Water Users Association
Sustainable Drinking Water Services at Scale: Everyone Forever Round Table 2013 5
Executive Summary
A perfect storm is brewing in the water and sanitation (Watsan) sector, largely primed by rapid
climate change, dwindling resources, unsustainable practices and a public sector performance
deficit. Popular discourse regularly laments the failure of public services. More critically, it is seen as
failing the disadvantaged, who have no choice but to resign to the inadequacies of public
management.
In contrast to this gloomy scenario, the author has been involved with successful public
management reform undertaken by the Centre of Excellence for Change (CEC), over the last ten
years, from 2003 to 2012, across eight departments of Tamil Nadu state in India (water and
sanitation, water resources, agriculture, livestock, watershed and education). CEC has also been
involved in public transformation endeavours in the Watsan parastatals of the Indian States of
Maharashtra, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh & Rajasthan, whilst working across hierarchies with large
number of engineers and officials with heartening results. As Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (2011) stated:
‘I am confident that the unique change experience pioneered by the Centre of Excellence for Change
at Chennai will become the benchmark in India in bringing the change in thinking among the various
cross sections of government departments’.
Institutions are critical instruments for quality service delivery. Despite sound policies and large
investments programmes, one of the key reasons for persisting slippage and poor services are
institutional inadequacies and slow change processes.
This paper is about successful and ongoing endeavours in establishing change across multiple
parastatals. It seeks to present a conceptual learning framework to understand the change process
as it evolves into a new paradigm and identify key aspects for other public practitioners and
domains, which is key to sustainable service delivery at scale in India.
Organisational Change and Public Service
The task of public management is to deliver development with dignity. Development in this context
implies a rejection of the status quo and a quest for change. Therefore, the performance of public
management is predicated on triggering and sustaining change movements directed towards
ensuring delivery of basic services to the poor and vulnerable. The Public Organisation Change
Framework (POCF) indicates that outcomes depend on four crucial intertwined aspects of sense of
Purpose, alignment of People to that purpose, backed by enabling Process and inclusive Praxis that
acts as a bond around the organisation.
6 Transfomation of Public Service Management
Goal Mandate Optimising
Public Service
Values Behaviour Relationship
Governance Structure Leadership
Service Sectoral Accountability
Public Service
Figure a Public Organisation Change (POC) Framework
Source: Nayar, 2012.
Transformation of public management necessitates jettisoning the conventional for a New Paradigm
which is dynamic, evolutionary and endogenously fuelled. The Public Organisation Change (POC)
framework provides the transformation path with points of entry as well as sites of incubating
change located in Purpose, People, Process and Praxis as indicated in Figure a.
Common Purpose – A Beacon for Navigating Change
When the organisation purpose is shared and owned by all stakeholders it reflects a common
purpose characterised by (i) Developmental Goals, (ii) Shared Vision and (iii) Citizenship Objectives.
Watsan, purpose is encapsulated conceptually in the tagline of the Tamil Nadu Water Change
Management Group (TNWCMG) –‘Secure Water for All, Forever’. The goal enshrines development
with dignity while simultaneously targeting resource security (secure water), egalitarian service (for
all) and sustainable development (forever). Common purpose finds life in such shared vision, which
becomes beacons for the change effort.
People Management – At the Heart of Things
The lifeblood of any public organisation are its human resources. In working towards change the
human resources are both an asset as well as the challenge. Human values are of essential
importance to both achieving desired organisational goals and the care and management of
common-pool resources, including water. But, is a shift in values possible? External evaluation done
in Tamil Nadu Rural Water Supply Programme (TNRWSP) in 2007 had reported significant shifts in
the values of engineers who have worked with the Change Agents Network (CAN) model.
The second critical dimension of achieving people alignment is through revisiting individual
behaviour which is essentially shaped by attitudes and perspectives. In this context, attitude
transformation involves redefining outlooks about the Purpose (sustainable water provision), the
Process (democratic governance) and People (reaching the unreached) for which one operates.
Perspective shift involves enabling individuals to think critically ‘Why am I doing this job? ‘What is so
important about my job?’ Such a process of appreciation enquiry is relatively new to public
organisations but is essential to embed change.
Sustainable Drinking Water Services at Scale: Everyone Forever Round Table 2013 7
Seed to Bloom – The Process
The success of the organisational change efforts is critically dependent on the nature of processes
adopted to enable change. Most appropriate process would be an endogenous transformation
which provides salience to ‘I’, ‘we’, ‘us’ evolutionary path. A critical platform used for initiating the
change process was through workshops. A workshop (Muttram or Angan) is a common space where
officials could individually and collectively practice introspection, explore and debate issues relating
to the personal and the institution. A key change in a Muttram-based process is in polycentric
democratic governance. Polycentricity suggests creating and encouraging multiple-change
champions to lead nested units across the organisation. These units (subdivision, block team) are
self-evolving and self-motivated. Nests would thrive on Indian diversity and understand that each
community (village) requires a fresh exploration of social capital and forging of new relationships
between the citizen, utility and thus the state. Leadership in nested organisations would set
direction from the top but engage people from below. This would focus simultaneously on the hard
side (outputs) and software (organisation behaviour) and let incentives reinforce change and not
drive it.
Change in Praxis
It is in the praxis of the organisation that its purpose meets performance reality. The CAN Model
stipulates that practice be based on new norms of citizenship, co-creation and accountability. Going
beyond participation, citizen-centric co-creation is essentially a public organisation where citizens
leverage each other’s assets and resources to maximise available potential while jointly creating a
higher value experience of the service. Citizenship and the democratic culture of practice demand
new norms of accountability which would be a multi-dimensional and a multi-layered matrix.
The potential of behavioural change programmes can be seen in transformation in workplace
practice. Responses of women and Dalits (Figure b), captured by a randomised external evaluation
conducted by Unicef, vouchsafe it’s impact.
Behaviour
Official Behaves as a community member provides Women / Dalitspace to talk, listens more etc.,
Actions
Official Consults Women / Dalit to identify problems, choose and
implement solutions
84%
61%
8% 8%
65%
57%
11%
22%Wo
me
n
Dal
it
Wo
me
n
Dal
it
CMG settlements Control Settlements
UNICEF-MIT External Evaluation (2008)
(% respondents)
Figure b TN Water Engineers Attitude & Actions (Women & Dalit Perspective)
Source: James, 2006.
8 Transfomation of Public Service Management
Institutionalising Change – CMG to CEC
To embed and spearhead these evolving change experiments a Change Management Group (CMG)
was formed in TN. The CMG evolved into CEC as a voluntary core group from across specialisations,
hierarchy, social or geographic groupings. The CEC (registered not-for-profit) provides an
institutional platform for all likeminded change agents from amongst government organisations,
public utilities and civil society to champion from within the transformation of the governance of
critical services. Building on the experience of the CMG, the CEC works with multiple sectors and
agencies as an internal change pressure group with a single vision to ‘Secure Water and Food for All,
Forever’.
Conclusion
Public services are under intense pressure to improve their performance. Poor institutional
performance and effectiveness is one of the key reasons for service delivery failures. Any
improvement requires fundamental transformation of public management in the creation of
common Purpose, involvement of the People, integrity of the Process and the inclusiveness in
Practice.
Although one size does not fit all, there are seven key steps which can help embed change in public
management, namely:
i. Identify and communicate the problem
ii. Coalesce and deploy the vanguard
iii. Anchor collective introspective workshops (Muttram)
iv. Share a dream, create a bottom-up vision
v. Encourage experimentation
vi. Institutionalise the change
vii. Reinforce a change culture
The CAN organisational change model is focused on bringing about change endogenously. Its results
across differing contexts and geographies re-establish our faith in public service organisations and
elucidate the possibility of a bottom up paradigm shift in governance which is people centric and
institutionally responsive. Decisive efforts are required to scale up such transformative endeavours
to establish institutional change processes across the country for sustainable investments, improved
welfare and satisfied citizens.
Sustainable Drinking Water Services at Scale: Everyone Forever Round Table 2013 9
1 Genesis of the New Discourse
A perfect storm is brewing in the water and sanitation (Watsan) sector, largely primed by rapid
climate change, dwindling resources, unsustainable practices and a public sector performance
deficit. Governments are aware of this challenge and in response, the sector has received high
levels of public investments, yet sustainable services still remain elusive. According to the UN
WDR (2003):
(The) water crisis is largely our own making. It has resulted not from the natural limitations of
the water supply or lack of financing and appropriate technologies, even though these are
important factors, but rather from profound failures in water governance…
Popular discourse regularly laments the failure of public services. More critically, it is seen as
failing the disadvantaged, those who have no choice but to resign to the inadequacies of public
management or just voicelessly wait for public services to see, hear and reach them. While a lot
of effort has gone into developing the demand side of Watsan services through new policies,
strategies and structures, the supply side institutional mechanisms and governance systems
have not received the analytical attention it warrants.
It is clear that a comprehensive transformation of the supply institutions is needed if states wish
to uphold the human right to water (UN General Assembly, 2010). There is near universal
agreement on this conclusion, but there is less than adequate clarity on how to successfully
bring about the much-needed transformation of the public management system.
Not surprisingly, studies show that the most recurrent challenge in public sector reform
experiments is the difficulty in bringing about changes in people and systems. A World Bank
report (2008), which studied public sector reform programmes (investment of US$ 20 billion)
disclosed that of all the areas of reform work, the most intractable were programmes aimed at
ensuring reform in administration and within the civil service. The established understanding
has also been that quality governance is important for economic development. Progress on both
fronts, however, has been painfully slow and often impossible to see (Kamark, 2012).
In contrast to this gloomy scenario, interesting public management reform has been
undertaken, over the last ten years (2003 to 2012), across departments of Tamil Nadu (TN).
These reform programmes involved eight water and allied sector departments (Watsan, water
resources, agriculture, livestock, watersheds and education). The Center of Excellence for
Change (CEC) has anchored this change effort in TN and has also initiated public transformation
endeavours in the Watsan parastatals of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan
and Odisha, whilst working with large number of engineers and officials across hierarchies. A
common feature of these programmes has been the response of both officials and institutions
to voluntarily introspect and create a new sense of relationships with their work, en route to
achieving significant performance levels. These heartening experiences in multi-sectoral, multi-
state transformation of service delivery have lessons for other domains of public service. As Dr.
Abdul Kalam stated (2011):
10 Transfomation of Public Service Management
I am confident that the unique change experience pioneered by the Centre of Excellence for
Change at Chennai will become the benchmark in India in bringing change in thinking among the
various cross sections of the government departments.
This paper is about ongoing experiments in establishing change across multiple, large public
organisations. It also seeks to understand transformation through a conceptual learning
framework to locate change processes as it evolves in a new paradigm. It is a bid to capture both
its variance and universal principles which are applicable beyond geography or sectoral
contexts. To that extent it is a work in progress.
2 Conventional Public Sector
An organisation diagnostic exercise (Fig.1) carried out by CEC with officials of four states spread
over five years, highlighted consistently large gaps in public sector management between the
existing and the desirable systems along task-based, process-focussed and people-centric
themes.
Figure 1 Multi-state Watsan Organisational Diagnostic Survey
Source: CEC Annual Report, 2012.
The diagnostic confirms the popular notion that public organisations generally lack a shared
clarity of their purpose. Therefore they often exhibit conflicting goals and multiplicity of
optimising tendencies. Organisations are characterised by Weberian1 arrangements with
minimal space for individual innovation or creativity. Command and control governance
characterised by top-down leadership and delegation upwards, is the norm. Employees are
adept at both overly respecting and exercising power. In the process, the human values of
1 Max Weber’s ideal bureaucracy is characterised by hierarchical organisation, with clearly delineated lines of authority and activity
based on well-defined rules being neutrally implemented by bureaucrats trained in rules and procedures.
Sustainable Drinking Water Services at Scale: Everyone Forever Round Table 2013 11
employees are suppressed (by self) in place of the values of higher officials. Practice is
controlled by rules and procedures, (which are ends in themselves) to deliver service with a
benefactor approach. Accountability levels are low and only flow upwards while expenditure
and inputs masquerade as provision outcomes.
3 Organisational Change in Public Service
The task of public management is to deliver development with dignity. Development in this
context implies a rejection of the status quo and a quest for change. Dignity signifies the respect
and ethical treatment which every vulnerable being deserves in the provision of basic needs.
Therefore, the performance of public management is predicated on triggering and sustaining
change movement directed towards higher development levels through ensuring actual delivery
of basic services such as water and sanitation.
Goal Mandate Optimising
Public Service
Values Behaviour Power
Governance Structure Leadership
Service Sectoral Accountability
Public Service
Figure 2 Public Organisation Change Framework
Source: Nayar, 2012.
Organisation performance, especially in the public sector, in how it delivers basic service,
depends on four crucial and intertwined aspects: of sense of purpose, alignment of people to
that purpose, backed by enabling process and inclusive praxis that acts as a bond around the
organisation. Any attempt at organisation transformation to deliver development would gain
from addressing all four elements of the Public Organisation Change (POC) framework, their
inter-dependencies along with the enabling arrangement and an environment which influences
such a change.
Purpose provides the basis for the choice of the development paradigm and answers the
question: ‘Change towards what?’ The answer is reflected in the choice of goals, mandates and
optimising objectives of the organisation. If the purpose of parastatals is public service, then it is
12 Transfomation of Public Service Management
only the people within them who can deliver the desired performance. Undoubtedly, in public
organisations, people are the biggest assets and their performance hugely depends on issues of
individual and group values, behaviour and relationships.
Governance modes typify the nature of processes adopted by the organisation in its interaction
within the hierarchy and in its external interface with the citizens. The interactions seek a
framework in the organisation structure which provides the necessary platform for leadership to
anchor the quest for dignity in the organisational purpose. Finally, the praxis of the organisation
is reflected in the way development is actually delivered; in its service ethos, in its handling of
multiple stakeholders and in its accountability norms.
Viewed together the POC framework provides the construct to locate change. Essentially, the
four dimensions exist in a symbiotic relationship, simultaneously providing the rationale as well
as the path for change otherwise expressed as development with dignity.
If public institutions have to suitably answer the growing public disenchantment, political
exasperation and internal discontent, they have to comprehensively transform themselves in
the way they function, the performance they deliver and the people they serve.
Table 1 POC - the Framework for Metamorphosis
Organisation Dimensions (from) Conventional (to a) New Paradigm - CAN
Purpose
Goal Economic Sustainable Development
Mandate Legal Vision centric
Optimising Resource Citizenship
People
Values Security World View
Behaviour Egocentric Egalitarian
Power locus Concentrated Frontline
Process
Governance Centralised Democratic
Structure Bureaucratic Polycentric
Leadership Top down Mentor
Praxis
Service Provider Co-creation
Sectoral Silos Integrated
Accountability Upwards Matrix
Sustainable Drinking Water Services at Scale: Everyone Forever Round Table 2013 13
Transformation of public management necessitates jettisoning the conventional for a new
paradigm. The Change Agents Network model (CAN)2 is dynamic, evolutionary and
endogenously fuelled: it provides the transformation path with points of entry as well as sites of
incubating change. The interconnected dimensions of a common purpose, people centricity,
shared process and co-creative praxis provide the platform for new, paradigm-based
organisational change.
3.1 Common Purpose – A Beacon for Navigating Change
The founding fathers of India entrusted public organisations with a larger purpose pertaining to
managing critical resources in the public trust, while delivering sustainable development,
especially for the disadvantaged.
Meaningful and successful organisations are driven by a well-articulated and widely-understood
commitment to these basic tenets. Purpose is at the heart of the institutional response to the
Why? What? and How? of its actions. When a purpose is shared and owned by all in the
organisation it reflects a common purpose characterised by (i) developmental goals, (ii) shared
vision and (iii) citizenship objectives. Watsan goals are beautifully encapsulated conceptually in
the tagline of the TN Water Change Management Group- ‘Secure Water for All, Forever’. The
goal expresses development with dignity, while simultaneously targeting resource security
(‘Secure Water’), egalitarian service (‘for All’) and sustainable development (‘Forever’). In a
departure from the dry legalese of government handouts, TN water professionals opt to dream
and push their boundaries. They choose to strive for a bigger and more holistic purpose as the
beacon for seeking out a changed paradigm.
To bring such dreams to fruition, they need to be anchored in a strong mandate. Organisational
purpose seeks mandates to provide the foundation on which structures, policies and practices
are built. Conventionally, mandates are based on laws or political directives and these enabling
conditions have been in existence for a long time. Yet, there is minimal headway in achieving the
larger purpose. In addition to convention, mandate needs to derive sustenance from a shared
vision. A bottom-up vision evolved endogenously, debated fiercely but owned and valued by all
stakeholders before being adopted as the collective organisation vision.
Shared visions thus created, reflect the local genius, understand the ground realities, espouse
stakeholder aspirations, display collective ownership and thus ensure dedicated adherence to
the common purpose.
2 CAN Model is at the core of the transformation work of CEC.
14 Transfomation of Public Service Management
Box 1 TN Change Management Group (CMG)
The Change Management Group’s (CMG) vision (Box 1) is characterised by its evolutionary
development and shared underpinnings. The vision was debated across the organisation and in
the villages before consensus was achieved on its transformation purpose. It marks the
departure of the water engineers from the narrow technocratic mandate to the broader realms
of sustainable development. For the first time water engineers saw their roles as providers, and
as guardians of nature and of the dignity of the disadvantaged. It also indicates the primacy
given to conservation of physical and financial resources replacing the convention of optimising
resource exploitation. Radically advocating positively discriminating allocation of resources, the
vision seeks to optimise the benefit gained by the disadvantaged. Similar approaches are found
in the visions of communities (Box 2) and also in the visions of many other state utilities, which
evolved during the change journey.
Box 2 Resolution of Panchayat Presidents of Morappur Block
3.2 People Management – at the Heart of Things
The lifeblood of any public organisation are its human resources. In working towards the
organisation purpose human resources can be both an asset and a challenge. In most
development practice emphasis is placed on institutional structures, the use of resources and
policy prescription, but little on the individual. Individuals have remained one of the most
Secure Water for all, Forever
Our Vision:
1. Conservation of nature as a guarantee for future water,
2. Vibrant, revived and recharged water bodies,
3. Assured, equitable and sustainable water for all,
4. Successful community managed water supply system through active community participation;
especially women and the poor,
5. Safe disposal of solid and liquid waste for a clean and healthy environment,
6. Cost-effective technology options to ensure local maintenance and sustainable financial
management,
7. Formation of a Common Water Regulatory Authority for judicious use of water for all sectors.
Source: TN Change Management Group, TWAD Board 2005
Panchayat Presidents of Morappur Block:
We will protect water bodies and water supply sources. For this, we will change agricultural practices. We
will maintain a clean environment in the village. We dedicate ourselves for availability of water to all and
forever.
Source: Dharmapuri District (TN) 21.08.2012
Sustainable Drinking Water Services at Scale: Everyone Forever Round Table 2013 15
resistant elements in the development challenge. The performance of the village engineer in a
water scheme, the Village Health Nurse (VHN) in a hygiene project or a teacher in an education
programme, has a disproportionately large influence on the final outcomes of the programme.
Significantly, a vast majority of government WASH engineers are first-time graduates from rural
areas of the country. But, a few years into service and they mimic their senior colleagues and
the system in its collective apathy to the same rural citizenry. This submergence of the individual
in the monolithic parastatal is a big developmental conundrum. Any attempt at addressing this
puzzle needs to trigger the key determinants of individual responses which lie in their values,
and behaviour, which are in turn characterised by attitudes and perspectives and the underlying
relationships.
3.2.1 Unlocking Human Values Values are the priorities we live by, expressed in our choices and behaviours, informed by our
worldviews. Human values are found to be of essential importance to both achieving desired
organisational goals (Senge, 2010) and the care and management of common-pool resources,
including water (Ostrom, 2004). That values underlie choices can be seen in the set of officials
from Rajasthan who call themselves the ‘Varun Group’ and the way they redefining their roles,
as part of their change journey.
Figure 3 Rajasthan – Varun Group Source: CAN Workshop, Jaipur, March 2012 Source: Nayar, 2012.
The individual and societal transformations that we seek need to be understood as behaviour
changes reflecting shifts in the lived values of individuals and organisations; which are in turn
influencing and navigating existing and unfolding relationships (Joy, 2001). Organisations could
follow a three-fold value-based path of people management:
i. Align individual values with values representative of the organisation.
ii. Kindle desirable values through a process of disruptive reconstruction.
iii. Create leadership of a vanguard that espouses the desired values.
16 Transfomation of Public Service Management
Deriving from the common purpose, the organisation needs to identify values that exemplify it.
Once identified, the organisation needs to enunciate and communicate clearly, in form and
practice, the values it stands by: Human Dignity (HD)3, for example. Individuals who embody HD
would be publicly recognised and their behaviour encouraged. The TN-integrated water
resources management (IWRM) project set up an core group that focussed on disseminating
case studies of display of desired values. After communicating desirable organisation values, the
inherent dissatisfaction prevalent within most public systems can be used to trigger disruption
in the conventional values. This disruptive / reconstruction requires a process of deep individual
introspection and honest group exploration of the prevalent service, performance and desired
values.
With the realignment of desirable values the hitherto isolated change agents would gain
ascendancy. Control can pass into the hands of the emergent vanguard group of change agents
espousing these new values. In the TN experiments (also in Rajasthan) this vanguard evolved as
the CMG.
But, is a shift in values possible? While studying a shift in values amongst officials across eight
departments (all of which followed the Change Agents Networks (CAN) model in Tamil Nadu)
evaluators reported to the World Bank (Values Technology California, 2012)4:
i. The change training did indeed create significant life-changing shifts in public officials’
values. This was expressed both by individuals and by the target cohort.
ii. The change programme supported officials in aligning personal values with the values of
the public service as explored in the programme and securing their foundational values
Figure 4 Values shift with CAN in TN Water Utility (2007) Source: Joy. L, 2007.
3 The definition for human dignity in this context means: Encouraging systems and business practices that actively support
consciousness of the basic right of every human being to have respect and have basic needs met. Beyond this, there is a need for management structures and business practices that empower employees, customers and other stakeholders with the opportunity to develop their potential through mutual accountability, collaboration, and personal/ professional development.
4 The report was based on the Hall Tonna Value Inventory, Hall, B. O., et. al., 1986. Manual for the Hall Tonna Inventory of Values.
New York: Paulist Press.
Sustainable Drinking Water Services at Scale: Everyone Forever Round Table 2013 17
A similar external evaluation (Joy, 2007) done in the Tamil Nadu Rural Water Supply Program
(TNRWS) in 2007 reported significant shifts in the values of engineers who have worked with the
change management (CAN) model. The evaluation of Values Technology in California (2012)
goes on to report that:
We conclude that, without doubt, the premises of the Change model are sound and that the
programme is effective in shifting values as it is designed to do. This suggests validity for the
hypotheses that change can come from within the field-level arena of the public sector to improve
public service delivery by changing personal values.
3.2.2 Changing Minds – A Behaviour at a Time The second critical dimension of achieving alignment of people is through revisiting individual
behaviour. In public organisations, behaviour of the frontline has special relevance in ensuring
development with dignity. Any change effort can be successful only if there is a substantial
impact on the behaviour of individuals; those whose behaviour is essentially shaped by attitudes
and perspectives.
Attitude is Everything
Attitude is a readiness of the psyche to act or react in a certain way. Attitudes very often come
in pairs, the conscious and the unconscious. These are important because they reflect a mind-
set and therefore have a marked effect on job behaviour. Transforming an individual’s attitude
is essential, yet not easy. It is a complex process addressing three main components: cognitive,
being the opinion or belief segment of an attitude, affective, being the emotional or feeling
segment of an attitude and behavioural, which signifies the reflecting of an intention to behave
in a certain way toward someone or something.
In a government system, with layers of hierarchy closely woven into the bureaucracy, being
bound by rules, trumps the outcomes and is underpinned by a culture of mistrust, where
attitudes often get fixed into negative outlooks.
In this context, attitude transformation involves redefining outlooks about the purpose
(sustainable water provision), the process (democratic governance) and people (reaching the
unreached) for which one operates. Necessary transformation can be brought about through a
series of CAN engagements designed to engage individuals in transparent reflection and
exploration. This self-reflection was the essence of change in multiple departments in TN and in
a few other states.
18 Transfomation of Public Service Management
Figure 5 TN Water Engineers Attitude & Actions (Women & Dalit Perspective)
Source: James, 2006.
The potential of behavioural change programmes can be seen in the responses of women and
Dalits (Control vs Change Villages) to a randomised external evaluation conducted by Unicef
(James, 2006).
Revisiting Perspectives
Perspective is the choice of reference or context from which to categorise experiences,
reflecting a value system, typically for making informed choices. Perspective shift involves
enabling individuals to think critically: ‘Why am I doing this job?’ and ‘What is so important
about my job?’ Such a process is relatively new to public organisations that work based on
unquestioned obedience to the directions from the hierarchy. Public perspective shifts are
located at three levels: individual, organisation and citizen.
Amongst individuals: Covering the manner in which individuals perceive their own roles and
functions and nature of relationship between themselves, the public organisation and the
community at large.
As an organisation: Encompassing norms of relating, behaving and practicing internally along the
hierarchy and the manner in which it relates to the ordinary citizen. Positions itself as a trustee of
a critical resource and a bridge to the unreached over a heterogeneous community.
Amongst citizens: As the way the community at large also perceive their relationship with the
resource, the utility and importantly amongst themselves (Nayar, et. al., 2007).
A reflection of these perspective change was seen in the Maharashtra Jal Pradhikaran (MJP)
resolution (Box 3) rededicating themselves to the village and the environment. In a departure
from the build-and-neglect perspective they committed themselves to rehabilitation, problem
solving and most importantly volunteerism.
Sustainable Drinking Water Services at Scale: Everyone Forever Round Table 2013 19
Box 3 Resolution by Maharashtra Jal Pradhikaran (MJP) Officials
A similar recognition of the centrality of development with dignity for the unreached, as the
underlying ethos of public organisation, led to fundamental shifts in individual and group
perspectives in TN. These shifts can be categorised into three broad groups.
i. Shift from Benefactor to Partner: From being the sole arbiter of all WASH decisions the
officials shift to partnering communities through a process of collective decision making in
the provision of Watsan services. In the process, sharing both authority and responsibility as
well as providing a voice to the community.
ii. Shift from Exploitation to Sustainability: Discarding the techno-bureaucratic worldview of
‘build-and-forget’ in favour of a green worldview of, conserve, rehabilitate and rethink
before constructing. Understanding that more cash doesn’t plug a leak and neither do more
pipes and pumps give sustainable water supply as well as being aware of the drain on
resources in the existing approach.
Table 2 Operations and Maintenance (O&M) Cost Comparison (Nayar and Suresh, 2006)
O&M Cost Control VPs CM VPs
(Rs) Average per Village Panchayat (VP) / pm After One Year After One Year Year 2
O&M expenditure 23,908 16,041 12,182
Tariff collection 3,048 3,501 4,756
Collection as a percentage of expenditure 12.75 22 39
This shift in TN officials was based on a new stress on appropriate technology and inexpensive
operations, so as to reduce the burden of O&M expenditure simultaneously striving to improve
revenues for financial sustainability.
‘We the MJP family members resolve that:
We aim to rehabilitate non-functional schemes and we will try to solve the problems in the
functioning of village water supply schemes. We also undertake to conserve water and the
environment. We voluntarily come forward to do this’.
Source: Thane Change Programme, 2006.
20 Transfomation of Public Service Management
iii. Shift from Inputs to Outcomes
In response to the mystery of ever-increasing habitat deterioration of the Dalits and women,
engineers redefined their evaluation parameters to focus on sustainable gains by disadvantaged
households. In the context of IWRM, the multi-sectoral convergences between agriculture,
livelihood and water departments led to a redefinition of performance outcomes measured by
‘More Income from Every Drop of Water’ (Fig.6). Evaluations suggested that such
transformation-based multi-sectoral convergence interventions resulted in a 300%
improvement in incomes over a three-year period.
Figure 6 Upper Vellar Sub-basin Source: T.N. IWRM Project Annual Report, 2010.
3.2.3 Barefoot Bureaucracy5 – Locus of Change
Where should this behavioural exploration start? At the top, if that is where the change is
incubated, or at the bottom where citizens feel, touch and experience the insufficiencies on a
daily basis. The frontline epitomises the barefoot bureaucracy which is generally bureaucratic in
its processes but has the potential for change in its shared culture, values and proximity with the
citizens.
In successful public organisations, it has been found that success derives, in part, from unusual
dedication by ground-level employees to their jobs, a strong sense of mission, purpose, and
vision around the task at hand, and the capacity to provide customised service resulting in trust
and increased ownership built with the local communities (Tendler, 1997).
5 Barefoot Bureaucracy implies the bottom of the bureaucratic organization structure. It is characterised by ‘barefootness’ as officials at this level (pump operator, constable, para-teacher) usually work in the field and more importantly are drawn from the same socio-cultural and economic milieu as the people they are supposed to serve. Yet, whatever be their background, once the barefoot bureaucracy is co-opted by the system he/she rejects his/her origins in the display of apathetic behaviour towards the disadvantaged citizen.
Sustainable Drinking Water Services at Scale: Everyone Forever Round Table 2013 21
But, a caution on barefoot bureaucracy: policy implementers have understated the capacity for
policy changes to either conform to the original design of these policies or to follow a
completely different agenda (Lipsky, 1980). Any attempt at organisational change aimed at
improving performance would therefore need to be barefoot bureaucracy located in district,
block and villages (units of Indian field administration) for creating maximum impact while
ensuring it’s distortion-free implementation.
Recognising the Value Zone
It is the quality of interface at the frontline which determines the nature of services delivered to
the community and the experience of these interactions determines how the communities view
the state. It is also in these interactions with the poorest, that maximum incremental economic
and human developmental gains occur. For all purposes, the frontline is where a developmental
organisation creates its value i.e. the value zone. Naturally, the organisational pyramid should
be geared towards creating an enabling environment for the value zone to perform its functions
to the best of individual and collective capabilities. In this new construct, the assistant engineer
of the water utility at village level or the VHN would be the focus of all staff and line functions of
the organisation (as the organisation pyramid is inverted).
Such an inversion suggests a dilution, if not destruction, of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
office to be replaced by multiple-empowered leaders, across the organisation. And lastly, it
creates an environment in which policy respects frontline experience and learns, especially from
their failures.
4 Seed to Bloom – The Process
The success of the organisational change efforts is dependent on the nature of the processes
adopted to enable change. An endogenous transformation provides salience to the ‘I, we, us’
evolutionary path.
Figure 7 Endogenous Transformation Path
Source: Nayar, 2012.
22 Transfomation of Public Service Management
The transformation is best seeded at the individual level, the ‘I’. In order to trigger individual
change, it is essential to focus on the values and behaviours which define the actions of a civil
servant. These elements need to be examined and addressed by each individual through an
introspective process. In the introspection process (workshops) akin to Kolb’s (1984) perception
continuum, individuals engage in thinking (abstract conceptualisation) and watching (reflective
observation). This process of open discussion and reflective enquiry leads participants to
deconstruct long-held attitudes and behaviours and create (assimilate) a new identity for
themselves.
A critical platform used for initiating the change process was the Muttram (Box 4) Workshop.
Muttram is a space where officials could individually and collectively critically examine, explore
and debate issues relating to the personal, professional and institutional in the context of
political economy, resource constraints, failing outcomes, citizen dissatisfaction and mutual
distrust.
The next transition stage in the organisation transformation path is the collective, the ‘we’. ‘We’
encompasses exploration of the group (formal and informal) in the context of the three
dimensions of (i) roles, (ii) relationships and (iii) culture.
Box 4 Muttram (Aangan): Workshop Space for Exploration (2003 to 2012)
A pan-Indian socio-cultural concept of Muttram (South India) and Aangan (North India) was adopted for
the workshops. Muttram or Aangan can be loosely defined as a courtyard or collective space
characterised by equality, uninhibited democracy, openness and consensual decision making. It provided
the framework to deconstruct long-held bureaucratic roles, relationships and hierarchies.
Muttram is introduced very early in the change journey to provide an alternate space, (initially informal),
outside the institution, to view individual and organisation purpose and performance, objectively from a
dispassionate distance.
Over long-term engagement Muttram created a significant new collective identity (some participant
groups identifying themselves as from Ongur Muttram or Boond Aangan) which automatically evoked a
shared sense of purpose, belonging and commitment.
Muttram in the workshop provided the initial space for the group to examine the ‘we’. By
expanding Kolb’s processing continuum in debating as a group, the fundamental questions of,
‘Why do we do things?’ ‘How do we relate to each other?’ ‘How do we exercise power?’ and
ultimately ‘How do we collectively perform?’ Gradually, the examination expanded beyond the
workshop to the workspace by initiating constructive dialogue and seeking improvement in
previously-taboo areas.
Sustainable Drinking Water Services at Scale: Everyone Forever Round Table 2013 23
4.1 Workplace: Sphere for Embedding Learning into Formal
Systems
The workplace provided a formal space to experiment with new ideas and then to
institutionalising it through collective example by redefining roles (engineers to water trustees),
forging new relationships (providers to partners) and establishing new power equations (invert
the pyramid). The process encouraged a more open and honest culture stemming from an
understanding of the common purpose as well as new identities forged in the Muttram.
A poll that the author anchored with officials of Himachal on the challenges in water governance
yielded the results depicted in Table 3. The results indicate a collective acceptance of the need
for change in the formal space and a willingness to initiate it first and foremost at the individual
(person) level.
Table 3 Change in the formal space (Himachal)
The third transition stage is the holistic ‘us’. The ‘us’ includes the citizen as partners in the
transformation process in developing a:
i. Shared vision;
ii. Governance paradigm; and
iii. Collective structure. This focus would also include multi-sectoral stakeholders which in
contexts like IWRM have special relevance for breaking through old departmental silos
and boundaries of specialisations.
Community: Site for Learning by Implementing
‘Us’ is the space where officials and organisations forge new relationships with communities
based on norms of equality, equity and effectiveness.
In the ‘us’ frame the village is the site for the implementation of all new learning in partnership
with the community. The collective experience gives the employee, the organisation and the
citizen a deeper shared understanding of the common purpose of the organisation. The CAN
model encourages all engineers to voluntarily adopt at least one village to experiment with this
new learning approach. The appreciation and feedback of the community and
acknowledgement of the peers work as the incentive reinforcing the new paradigm.
The final transition stage of the transformation path is “beyond the fence”, in the interface with
the external environment. Once change-triggered outcomes are seen to fulfil the goals of
Key Triggers Yes No
We believe changes in water sector practices is necessary 100% 0
I think obstacles / obstruction to change can be won over / overcome 91.6% 8.4%
I am willing to start the change with myself 100% 0
24 Transfomation of Public Service Management
sustainable development, the time is right to engage with the external environment and
influence policy, laws and the political economy. As the systems imbibe the new practices
through policy and state acknowledgement, the new paradigm will be set to become the new
normal. The adoption of the CEC’s Change Management Model by GoI (Government of India’s
Department of Drinking Water & Sanitation) and the setting up of the National Change Forum in
2006, was the successful establishment of this new normal. Similar echoes could be found in the
policy notes of the Water Resources and Drinking Water Departments of TN.
The way in which an organisation is governed influences the dynamics of stakeholder
interactions and will eventually show up in the process by which outcomes are attained and
sustained. This internal process is best founded on an ethos of democratic governance,
embodying a polycentric, nested network, employing a mentoring leadership style.
4.2 Democratic Governance
The idea is that governance has to be understood within the framework of ‘development with
dignity’: If we are to solve common action problems (like water) effectively we must rethink the
way we approach market and government institutions. We need analytical approaches that are
consistent with a public sector that encourages human development at multiple levels
(Opschoor, 2004).
Figure 8 Functioning of VWSC (Perspective of Community) Source: James, 2006.
Democratic governance helps provide a focus of the hitherto neglected institutional
environment of partnership, equity and accountability. A democratic environment engenders a
frontline which reflects this new ethos in its interface with citizens. Such official leanings
towards democratic norms will also find resonance in the behaviour of community institutions.
Village Water and Sanitation Committees (VWSC) are consistently more egalitarian and
responsive wherever they were influenced by change champion officials.
Complex modern societies also seek new democratic organisation structures. According to
Porter (2001), 90% of decisions belong at the point of service, yet they are made elsewhere. The
Sustainable Drinking Water Services at Scale: Everyone Forever Round Table 2013 25
extent to which decisions are not made where they belong ultimately impede on the work they
were supposed to enable (Porter, et.al., 2001). In response, enlightened organisations can adopt
a polycentric network of nested units (nests) as constellations empowered and responsive, at
the point of delivery.
Polycentricity suggests discovering, creating and encouraging multiple change champions
leading nested units, across the organisation. These units (subdivision, group of school teachers,
block team) are self-evolving, self-directed and self-motivated. Such nests have the freedom and
flexibility to create their unique service pathways to honour their commitment to the common
purpose, each in response to their differing contexts. Nests would thrive on Indian diversity and
would understand that each community (village) requires a fresh exploration of social capital
and forging of new relationships between the citizen, nest, utility and thus the state, for desired
service performance. Therein lies a potential antidote to a one-size-fits-all project approach
(which is usually doomed to fail).
Power and Trust Continuum
Nested units also represent a departure towards a more egalitarian and empowered
organisation collective. Empowerment is not just a mathematical adjustment of power but
recognition of the shift in decision-making focus to the most appropriate lowest level. It is based
on the realisation of a fundamental truth being that top management’s willing renunciation of
power for the collective good, in a universe of constant entropy, re-empowers the renouncer,
through improved organisation performance. But to willingly forego power, organisations need
to have a strong culture of trust. Building trust in one another and developing institutional rules
that encourage trust is essential for systems to sustain change.
4.3 Leading Change
Leadership in networked organisations would set direction from the top but engage people from
below. They would focus simultaneously on the hard side (outputs), the software (organisation
behaviour) and would let incentives reinforce change and not drive it (Nohria and Beer, 2000).
Premium is placed on adopting a mentoring style following the adage ‘let a thousand flowers
bloom’. This is a necessity more than a virtue. In a modern, complex environment, leaders are
needed at all levels and especially at the cutting edge interface of the public organisation with
the citizen.
Such leaders need to be more like catalysts than like generals. They should avoid the spotlight
and focus instead on triggering multiple change reactions led by localised change agents. Each
node or nest will have a leader willing and capable of responding to the local context. Leaders
also need to be sought out and cultivated in communities (the ‘us’ space), especially amongst
the Panchayat, Water Users Association (WUA), Dalit and women for in their leadership the
realisation of democratic governance will lie.
26 Transfomation of Public Service Management
5 Trials and Tribulations with Praxis
It is in the praxis of the organisation that its purpose meets performance reality. Service delivery
practice determines the success or failure of the procession achieving its larger purpose. Service
delivery is often looked at from a provider perspective, focussing on targets, expenditures and
numeric task reports. Conventional theory advocates rule-bound practice and modernisation
theory as well as participatory action, but the CAN model focuses on a practice based on new
norms such as citizen-centricity, co-creation, subaltern leadership and accountability.
5.1 Citizen-centric Co-creation of Services
Going beyond participation, citizen-centric co-creation signifies essentially public organisation
and citizens leveraging each other’s’ assets and resources to maximise available potential while
jointly creating a higher value experience of the service.
This implies a changed understanding of the role of public professionals and citizens and also
their relationship to each other, encouraging them to use traditional wisdom, local knowledge,
skills and experience to collectively solve common problems. Organisations expand their impact
and understanding of public services to include the creation of new networks of responsibility,
respect and resource use between the official, the citizen and within the community, ultimately
towards an agreed-upon, common purpose.
Citizen-centric co-creation (Ostrom, 1996) of experience (Prahlat and Venkat, 2004) can be
characterised by:
i. Citizens are at the heart of service. They play an important role in the delivery as well as in
co-experiencing it as partners and not just passive recipients of subsidy;
ii. Recognising the value of human resources in employees as well as citizens, as well as
encouraging leadership in employees and citizens (WUAs, VWSC, user groups);
iii. Internally, blur silos of hierarchies and specialisations and create peer-support networks
and convergence across departments;
iv. Leverage capability rather than focussing on the need deficit. Thus creating new
opportunities with available social capital, physical resource, traditional and technical
knowledge.
With this framework services could be better delivered, collectively owned and evoke higher
satisfaction amongst citizen.
In the World Bank-assisted TN-IWRM (Institute of Sustainable Development (ISD), 2012) project,
the community responses (Fig.9) of ‘How does the official act in the village?’, ‘Does the officials
attend village meetings and behave as a part of the community?’ (listens more, makes an effort
to talk with small and marginal farmers and gives them space to talk) indicated the possibility of
collaborative co-creation in the change management model.
Sustainable Drinking Water Services at Scale: Everyone Forever Round Table 2013 27
Figure 9 Water and Food Official – Interface with community
Source: World Bank, 2012.
5.2 Subaltern Force Multipliers
In the author’s experience, of the many public organisations which he has led, a sizeable
number of the employees are passionate about their work, dissatisfied with the current scenario
and silently wish to alter the status quo. These subaltern potential change agents, if connected,
could provide grass root, but nonetheless highly-effective leadership.
Change praxis should take all efforts to identify and nurture these subaltern agents who are
mostly found on the frontlines and at grassroots levels. With support they are perfect antidotes
to the creeping employee apathy that is the bane of public management. In meta organisations,
for any worthy change effort to succeed, the practice of encouraging, including and empowering
these agents is paramount. Given the right environment they are capable of producing silent,
evolutionary change, which overtime will produce broad shifts even in the most recalcitrant
parts of the organisation (Meyerson, 2001).
5.3 Accountability Interplay
Conventional organisation design, historically borrowed from the army, has a pattern of
accountability that only flows up. A fresh culture of practice demands new norms of
accountability. In today’s dynamic world, with its complex challenges, accountability should be a
multi-dimensional and multi-layered matrix. Within the organisation, the employee and line
formations should be accountable to the value zone where maximum citizen interface happens
and where value is being created. Both the frontline and the organisations are answerable to
citizens and the state. In turn, the state is answerable to the citizen through the democratic
process.
Citizens, through the co-creation pact are accountable to the state and to the collective for the
observance of laws, vision and inclusive social norms, around the resources. Within the
community the user is responsible to the rest for preserving and conserving the resource. A
related experiment in TN showed a new perspective on accountability. Communities are capable
of responding to consensual social objectives irrespective of an external mandate, law or rule.
28 Transfomation of Public Service Management
Based on their collective vision, 35% of the village Panchayats opted to voluntarily impose the
very sensitive stand-post tariffs.
Table 4 Voluntary User Charges for Public Fountains
VP user charge collection
targets (% of O&M costs)
Number of VPs in
the group
responding to this
question
Number of VPs
imposing PF user
charges voluntarily
Per cent of VPs
imposing PF user
charges voluntarily
0% 34 12 35%
25% 35 10 29%
100% 33 8 24%
Source: Nayar and James, 2010.
In theory there is an intricate web of accountability routes but the honest practice of change is
entirely dependent on the respect shown to these routes. Opportunities, as in the TN
experiment, will ensure appropriate feedback, correction and desired evolution of the practice
of changed accountability norms.
5.4 Institutionalising Change
As the TN water utility vanguard grappled with its purpose in the Muttram and practice in the
villages it found a new calling.
Participants of the change programme reflected on its practice arising from target-oriented
schemes. A critical view slowly emerged being that pushing for a review of the institution is
important for effective functioning. Going beyond expenditure and schemes, this viewpoint
found articulation in the form of a resolution, which after many rounds of discussions
(throughout the length and breadth of the state-wide department) was finalised as the
Maraimalai Nagar Declaration:
Box 5 The Maraimalai Nagar Declaration, 14 August 2004
Impact of the Maraimalai Nagar Declaration
The Maraimalai Nagar Declaration became the bedrock of organisation practice in the Tamil
Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board(TWAD). In as much as it was an internal resolution,
The Maraimalai Nagar Declaration
• We will evaluate the existing schemes and ensure that the schemes are put into optimal use first.
• Then rehabilitation will be undertaken wherever necessary along with revival of traditional sources.
• This will be taken up before taking up any new schemes in the block.
• We will aim at a 10 per cent increase in coverage with the same budget.
Sustainable Drinking Water Services at Scale: Everyone Forever Round Table 2013 29
there was willing adherence even though it entailed a sharp departure from convention. It
represented a marked shift from techno-budgetary approaches and the results were very
heartening:
i. Investment cost: Overall reduction by 40% to 50%. An average project in CM villages costs
Rs.1,827 per household, while in regular schemes it averages Rs.4,580;
ii. Low cost options: 50% of schemes shifted to rehabilitation such as pipeline extensions
instead of more expensive fresh asset options;
iii. Savings: Savings of between 8%and 33% (across districts) were achieved over the regular
budget. O&M expenditure reduced to Rs.18.6 per household.
These numbers are indicative of the potential of endogenous change once it is collectively
owned and accepted by a large section of the organisation.
Change Management Group (CMG) to CEC
To embed and spearhead these evolving change experiments (like the Maraimalai Nagar
Declaration) a CMG was formed in Tamil Nadu. The CMG is a voluntary core group comprised of
individuals from across specialisations, hierarchy, social or geographic groupings. The CMG in
various departments of Tamil Nadu (Watsan, water resources, watershed, agriculture, livestock)
have uniformly adopted a mandate:
i. To work as an in-house group to dialogue with the system for change;
ii. To empower those within who want to change and encourage the rest through capacity
building; and
iii. To build bridges with unreached communities in word and spirit. Over time similar
heterogeneous, yet inclusive and open groups called Community CMG (CCMG) were also
formed in many villages of TN.
The informal CMG structure across many institutions found a common platform with the
formation of CEC as registered not-for-profits in 2009. The CEC provides an institutional
platform for all likeminded change agents from government organisations, public utilities and
civil society to champion transformation of the governance of critical services from within.
Building on the experience of the CMG, the CEC works with the vision of ‘Secure Water and
Food for All, Forever.’ and a mission to mitigate climate challenges, water and food crisis,
through a paradigm shift in water management and service delivery engendering individual and
organisational change.
The CEC now has a collective critical mass to work as a pressure group, straddling both the
formal and informal space, and the opportunity to influence the purpose and practice of many
public organisations and catalysing change in each one of them.
30 Transfomation of Public Service Management
6 Flow and Ebb Interface
The interface of the dimensions of the POC framework are characterised by flow and ebb which
are symbiotic and dynamic due to interrelatedness and interdependence of organisational
themes. Triggers in the themes of one dimension can influence the elements of one or more of
the other as the dimensions build on the each other’s strengths and address the weakness,
while striving to attain a new equilibrium.
Figure 10 Flow and Ebb Source: Nayar, 2012.
There are two modes to attaining the new equilibrium:
The change cycle starts when there is a ‘give-and-take’ interaction between dimensions. At
every interaction there is immediate feedback that triggers how much give and take needs to
happen. This experiential registration of feedback and triggers happens throughout the change
cycle. The extent of change that happens depends on the complexity of individual themes the
extent of connectedness across themes, as well as the intensity of intervention. Once impact is
achieved through the realisation of substantive change, the particular change cycle is complete.
When lessons of one change cycle lead to an improved approach for the next cycle, it is proof of
the institutionalisation of the new paradigm. After the above feedback (a deep need for
change), the flow and ebb then necessitate regrouping of elements towards a flow again, a
renewed assault on the recalcitrant on one hand and on the other towards testing the depth of
change that could be potentially possible.
A typical instance of flow/ebb and reflow is the increasing circle of consensus that was built
around the Maraimalai Nagar Declaration. The leap of faith its landmark statements espoused
required a constant flow/ebb and reflow to achieve increasing circles of consensus.
Sustainable Drinking Water Services at Scale: Everyone Forever Round Table 2013 31
Process – People hence Purpose
In the multi-sectoral change project (TN-IWRM) Single Window Knowledge Centres (SWIC) were
established as community-official shared spaces voluntarily offered by the district convergence
group. Evolved as a 24-hour helpline, seven days a week, on offer was:
i. People – personal mobile number of officials on a public board in the village ensuring
round the clock access;
ii. Process – joint village visits of eight departments as per a pre-determined weekly
schedule for; and
iii. Purpose – inclusion, knowledge transfer and collective problem solving. Unmindful of lack
of any executive order, a completely voluntary commitment was established to reach
beyond routine techno-bureaucratic goals.
Virtuous Fly Wheel
Avery effective way to increase the circle of change in ever-increasing ripples is to create a
virtuous flywheel movement.
Figure 11 Virtuous Change Flywheel Source: Adapted from Jim Collins, 2001.
A critical step in organisational transformation is to get large numbers (tipping point) to commit
to the new purpose and practice. Even in a moribund public organisation, many will gravitate
towards and wish to associate with an idea that produces visible results. Having attracted their
minds, leadership should engage their hearts in the change paradigm.
32 Transfomation of Public Service Management
7 Legacy Challenges
Change efforts in any organisation are difficult and they are doubly so in the public sector.
Change agents need to face and surmount a varied set of challenges, during the change journey.
The public sector is typically characterised by a non-conducive environment which encourages
status quo. Entrenched societal interest groups oppose any alteration of the equilibrium.
Minimal accountability accompanied with maximum safety and security breeds employee
apathy and a disconnect with citizens. In terms of employee engagement, motivating and
creating self-driven employees remains a challenge. As bureaucratic organisations do not
provide space for innovation or failure, it requires a lot of courage for a frontline employee to
become a change agent in the face of peer and organisational inertia. Meta organisations have
employees from, and serve citizens from very diverse socio-economic and political backgrounds.
With such diversity, creating a common purpose is a huge challenge. Once established,
sustaining the change flywheel requires constant reinforcement, revisiting and rededication.
8 Conclusion
Public services are under intense pressure to improve their performance. While many
approaches have been tried, most have focussed on the demand for service delivery. Sustained
improvement cannot be achieved without addressing the public service organisation
arrangement and environment. This requires fundamental transformation of public
management in the creation of a common purpose, involvement of the people, integrity of the
process and the inclusiveness in practice.
Strategising Transformation Success
Although one size does not fit all, there are certain key steps that can help embed change in
public management.
i. Identify the problem – It is essential to identify and define the problem. The resource and
service challenge therein should be communicated stridently across the organisation. It is
crucial for the organisation to accept the problem and its role in it.
ii. Deploy the vanguard – Identify the interested and committed core group. They need not
necessarily be the most powerful, but need to represent all layers within the organisation.
Brainstorm and strategise with them. The vanguard (like the CMG) would be the
ambassadors of the change process, subtly directing it from within the organisation.
iii. Anchor workshops (Muttram) – Initiate open, and introspective workshops with
participants across the hierarchy. Embed members of the vanguard to act as catalysts for
change within the workshops. Encourage exploration of the organisation’s purpose,
practice and performance.
iv. Create a bottom-up vision – Share a dream and create a vision for the future. Define it in
clear terms and communicate it throughout the organisation. Sharing it, seeking
contributions and modifying it until a consensual shared vision emerges. Use the
Sustainable Drinking Water Services at Scale: Everyone Forever Round Table 2013 33
workshops to create awareness of the values. They should align with the vision and
trigger the necessary value shift.
v. Encourage experimentation – Trigger commitment to the vision through experimental
implementation. Let every official taste the new idea by trying it (i) at home (‘I’), (ii) at the
office (‘we’) and (iii) with the community (‘us’). They should share experiences, lessons
and celebrate successes, however small. Difficult organisational issues may arise. Don’t
avoid them… instead guide the vanguard to seek solutions first internally and for the
intractable, externally.
vi. Institutionalise the change – Walk the talk and personally practice change behaviour.
Make the lessons from the experimentations official by changing the organisational
processes, ranging from simple outcome indicators to the complex demise of a rigid
hierarchy.
vii. Reinforce change culture – Managing change has to be an internal and eternal capability
of the organisation. Change is dynamic and therefore requires constant internal
reinforcement. Take stock often, especially on the completion of every change cycle in
order to be ready for the next challenge.
The CAN model of organisational change is focussed on bringing about change endogenously.
The results across differing contexts and geographies re-establish our faith in public service
organisation and clearly elucidate the possibility of a bottom-up paradigm shift in governance
that is people centric and institutionally responsive. Being housed and owned within
organisations, it is likely to be more self-directed and sustained. Herein lies hope for the future
of public service delivery.
34 Transfomation of Public Service Management
References
Collins, J., 2001. Good to Great. New York: Harper Collins.
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